00:00In recent weeks, the U.S. has dispatched eight warships and a submarine to the southern Caribbean.
00:06An anti-drug operation, it says, that has already seen three vessels blown up and those on board killed.
00:12Venezuela fears that the military build-up could be a percussor to attacks on its territory.
00:17U.S. President Donald Trump is no fan of his Venezuelan counterpart leftist, Nicolas Maduro,
00:23questioning his re-election and calling, in fact, Maduro illegitimate.
00:26But Maduro has called for an increase in his country's defences and thousands have joined a civilian militia in response.
00:33But Venezuela's opposition praised Trump and his actions.
00:37It's not just Venezuela that is under the U.S. radar.
00:40However, Colombia, too, has been blacklisted by Washington for what it calls flawed anti-drug efforts.
00:45Well, to get more insight on all that is happening over there,
00:48we can speak now with Lecturer in Latin American Studies at Newcastle University.
00:52Nicolas Morgan, thanks so much for your time.
00:53Can I start simply by asking you, this military deployment, how significant is it?
01:01Well, it's hard to tell.
01:03I mean, I suspect it's what at one time we would have called saber rattling rather than, you know,
01:09a serious likelihood of some kind of U.S. military intervention in Venezuela right now.
01:14A lot of U.S. policy vis-Ã -vis the region seems to be working at a very kind of basic level.
01:21And I think these attacks are also related to that.
01:25It's an exercise of raw power.
01:28There's a lot of threats.
01:30There is a lot of bullying, I would call it.
01:32I think that's probably some people would object to that term,
01:35but I think it's probably the best term to use.
01:40And I think a lot of this is also for domestic consumption as well.
01:44Yes, for the Trump administration.
01:47Is there weight in those accusations that Trump is actually trying to oust leftist Nicolas Maduro?
01:56Well, Trump's no fan of the Maduro regime.
01:59The U.S. hasn't been a fan of the Maduro regime for a long time.
02:03Whether they are serious about effecting regime change right now is another matter.
02:10I mean, the U.S. continues to import about a quarter of Venezuela's oil production.
02:16I mean, sanctions were loosened prior to Trump's arrival in the White House.
02:23I guess if the U.S. is really serious about doing something about regime change,
02:27then we'd probably see a shift there.
02:30But at the moment, I think this has got more to do with posturing
02:35than any kind of immediate likelihood of a serious U.S. attempt
02:40to effect regime change in Venezuela, which would probably be difficult anyway.
02:45It looks so far, in fact, that these actions could have boosted Maduro's support at home.
02:52Well, yes.
02:53I mean, Maduro depends on a kind of hostile U.S., right?
02:59I mean, so much of the regime's propaganda, if you like, depends on this notion of being a state
03:05that is embattled, that is patriotic, that represents the popular classes against these kind of,
03:12you know, attempts by a foreign, a hostile foreign power to direct Venezuela's, you know, internal policy.
03:21And though that's not entirely untrue, it's also a great alibi for the many failures of the Venezuelan government over recent years as well.
03:32And of course, it's not just Venezuela that seems to be under the radar of the U.S. in this latest move.
03:38We also saw Colombia, also led by a left-wing president, but it was delisted by the United States,
03:43saying, you know, that it really has failed in this war on drugs.
03:47What do you make of that?
03:50Well, again, I mean, I think so much of U.S. policy is governed by how they see the political colour of a particular administration,
04:00rather than on the realities of something which is really complex, which is how the whole drugs trade works, right?
04:06I mean, the role of U.S. companies and interests in laundering drugs money is extremely significant, but we don't hear much talk about that.
04:17And given the fact that Gustavo Petro is, you know, someone who would be recognised as a leftist,
04:23I mean, I'd call him a centrist, really, but he's recognised as a progressive president anyway,
04:30and he's been in frequent disagreement with Trump on a whole range of issues.
04:36I think that's got more to do with the current decertification than the actual realities of what's happening, you know, in drug production in Colombia.
04:45There is a significant difference of opinion between the U.S. and Colombia on these matters.
04:52The current Colombian government wants to focus on dealing with drug shipments,
04:58and there's been an increase in, you know, the capture of drug, the seizure of drug shipments under the petrol regime.
05:08At the same time, the U.S. would prefer to have an emphasis on the eradication of crops,
05:13which is something that petrol doesn't want to do, because he sees that as probably having the greatest impact
05:18on the people who are the most vulnerable in the drugs trade, who are those who are actually, you know,
05:22involved in producing the drugs in the first place.
05:25So peasants, I guess, you know, we would call them.
05:29And you speak there of, you know, arresting drug smugglers, intercepting the boats,
05:35but we've seen the U.S. absolutely take them out to kill the people that were on board.
05:40I mean, does the U.S. have the right to do this in these waters?
05:43Yeah, well, I'm smiling about that, but ironically, I mean, it's a deeply disturbing development, isn't it?
05:51I mean, this is extrajudicial killing.
05:54These are people who are being given the death penalty without any due process.
05:58And it really does make a mockery of any notion of international law.
06:03I mean, I know the U.S. hasn't signed up to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea,
06:09but U.S. legal advice suggests that they should comply with it.
06:14And this kind of blatant intervention that leads to this loss of life, you know, without any due process,
06:22we don't really know yet who those people were, in spite of the fact that the U.S. tells us that they have solid evidence
06:28that they were members of the Tren de Aragua criminal organization, which is debatable in itself, I guess.
06:34You know, whoever these people were, they probably, well, it is hard to justify extrajudicial killing in international waters.
06:46Indeed. Nicholas Morgan of Newcastle University, thanks so much for your time and joining us here on France 24.
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